


One Short Day

by daughterofalderaan



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26781265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daughterofalderaan/pseuds/daughterofalderaan
Summary: Ellie and Alec take a trip to the theatre. The show happens to be a jukebox musical with ABBA songs.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	One Short Day

**Author's Note:**

> wizomania

It was nearing the end of a relatively uneventful workday. The door to Alec’s office was open so Ellie strolled in and asked, “Got any plans for this weekend?”

Alec glanced at the corner of his computer monitor to check the date. “Isn't today Thursday?”

“Yes. And?” 

“People normally ask that on Fridays.”

“You're heading the social interaction police now?”

“Yep,” he deadpanned.

“Yet you haven’t answered the question,” she said, raising a brow.

“Erm. M’not doing anything out of the ordinary this weekend.”

“Well in that case, d’ya fancy a trip to London?”

“What? Weren't you going there with Beth?”

“Beth’s ill.” She shrugged, saying, “It's nothing serious but it doesn’t seem that she'll be cleared up in time.”

“I…was planning on spending the day with Daisy.”

“No, you just said you were free.”

“Didn’t say that.“

“Look, I've got a pair of tickets for Mamma Mia on Saturday, there’s no way to refund them. It’d be fruitless trying to convince Tom to come with, and Fred’s over the age restriction but he's much too bouncy, he won’t want to just sit there for hours on end. As for adults, my friend Clarissa’s out of town and Shelly’s been getting on my _nerves_ lately.” 

“And _I_ haven't been ?”

“You hadn’t until right now.”

“Hmm.”

“It's just a matinee. Me and Beth had been planning to stay up there longer, but I can get points for our accommodation booking, change the tickets for the train, and we’ll be back home in time for you to get your beauty sleep.”

“I don’t know…”

“People travel from ‘round the world to see a West End show and you just have to catch a train or two!” She worked things out in her head and added an “or three.”

“There's plenty of shows I'd care see, just not _Mamma Mia_.”

“Like what, some bone-dry play that only someone who wants to make themselves miserable would attend? Come on, let’s do something fun for a change!”

“Alright, okay, fine.”

On Saturday morning, they met up at the station as the sun was starting to creep out from the crevices between the surrounding buildings. Rain lightly pattered against the glass shelter in the few minutes that they waited on the platform for their train to arrive. 

The service was quiet and Ellie instantly went into nap mode. She leaned back against the wall with her legs extended out across the seat and her feet dangling off so her soles weren't touching the moquette.

Alec sat facing against the direction of travel and stared out the window as the terrain flew past. The view was standard fare really. Grass on flat land and grass on slopes and hills, occasionally warped by lines of rainwater streaks. When the sun was high enough to start stinging his eyes, he moved to the other side of the aisle.

Ellie was still out cold as they approached their transfer point. Saying her name didn’t wake her up, so he got up and reached over to shake her shoulder slightly. 

As they made their way over to the other end of the station, Ellie was a bit wobbly, sleepiness not having released its hold on her yet. However, the noise level inside the carriage of their next train woke her right up. Those heading to some sports match, a primary school group, people who were in neither category but spoke in booming voices, all smooshed into one space. 

They weren’t too far away from their destination so Alec and Ellie both stood. She started asking him a question and he couldn’t hear her due to the racket of their fellow travelers, so raised her voice and tried again. “How much do you actually like ABBA’s music?”

“Dunno, I haven’t—“ he, too, increased his volume at Ellie’s gesture “—thought about it. They do have one song, though… it just sounds like the manifestation of a headache.” 

“ _Dancing Queen_?”

“What?” He didn’t hear her over fresh commotion. A child wailed from dropping their ice cream cone, the child’s mother was disgusted at the child for dirtying up the train, and the child’s father was angry at the mother for buying the cone in the first place. Alec did process what she was saying a second after asking for clarification, though, and replied, “No! Although… No, _Take a Chance_ or sommat.”

“Oh fuck off! That’s their best one!”

“Yeah, fuck off mate!” called out the voice of a teenage boy a few rows away. The laughter of what must've been his posse immediately followed. Ellie frowned but didn’t try to tell them off. Alec suspected that the stroller blocking the aisle was what was preventing her Fight With Strangers button from being pressed.

Both were pleased to get off the Willy Wonka Hell Ride when they stepped off the train into Paddington Station. They lunched at a little café and took a long walk over to the theatre.

“Look at us, having fun out-of-town,” said Ellie as they slid into the plush seats of the dress circle.

The show itself was mildly horrifying.

After the first act, Ellie went off to purchase a program and so Alec got up and entered a stairwell off to the side of the auditorium to ring Daisy.

“How's London?” Daisy asked when she picked up.

“Same as always.”

“But,” Daisy prompted, seeming to gather that there was a “but.”

“ _But_ we’re at Mamma Mia and it's intolerable!”

“Really? Did you know what show it was before you signed up for this? I love it, it can’t be that bad.”

He leaned against the wall of the landing. “You’ve seen it, then?”

“Everyone’s seen it, Dad. The movie, at least.”

A woman entered the stairwell, unbeknownst to Alec as he was engrossed in the call. “One of the performers, the one getting married to the girl, he sings like there’s coal in his mouth,” he said.

The private-conversation-intruder had been limping up the stairs, but upon hearing his complaint, she stopped on the same landing that he was standing on. He noticed her then, as she glared directly at him before continuing her slow ascent. 

“I’m doubting it's that bad,” said Daisy.

“It...” He was put off by the way the anger that had just been directed at him. “It is.”

When indicative chimes went off through the theatre, Alec returned to his seat. Ellie had gotten drinks from the bar, and handed him when he plopped back down into his chair. He accepted it and muttered a “thanks.” 

He took a sip and overhead someone sitting in front of them. The person was speaking to their seatmate about their son, who was a cast member in the show. He was the third cover for the role he was playing, and this was their first time seeing him up on a West End stage. It was only when they turned her head slightly that he recognized that it was the woman from the stairs.

“Oh,” Hardy said quietly. 

“What is it?” Ellie asked. 

He leaned in close and muttered “I might've badmouthed one of the actors, the young one with the curly hair, within earshot of— “ he discreetly pointed to the row ahead “—his mother.”

“You did not!” she hissed. “Would you have some manners!”

“How was I to know his mum was sneaking up on me while I was on the phone!”

“If you'd just kept your negative opinions to yourself, then you’d be alright! Fred’s learning all about that in school, maybe you can join in on a lesson.”

Alec couldn’t get in another word, for the show started up again. Rather, the first beat of the entr’acte was so sudden and loud it was like everyone in the audience had been given a static jolt. 

He spilled some of the drink onto his sleeve from jumping out of his skin at the noise. “For fuck’s sake,” he said loud enough for the father sitting next to him to turn and give him a look. 

“Christ, you’d think they'd give you some warning!” said Ellie. 

Most of the second act was considerably better than the first. 

However, there was a dream number where the cast donned neon bathing suits. He almost wanted to complain to Miller that this was worse than his own nightmares. 

When _Take a Chance on Me_ started up, Ellie nudged him with her shoulder and whispered, “It’s your favorite.”

The grand finale was also an ordeal. It was like every single member of the audience save for him had been coached beforehand on what to do. Everyone sprung out of their seats and danced to the songs. 

“You can’t see the stage from down there,” Ellie said to him before he begrudgingly stood up. 

He was relieved when the final number, Waterloo, came to a close. As the exit music played them out, Ellie spotted his barely-sipped drink and downed it so as to not put it to waste.

"Chaos" is been the word Alec would have chosen to describe the egress experience. There were families trying to make sure everybody stuck together, rickshaw drivers simultaneously blasting different ABBA tunes on boomboxes to try to attract customers, groups singing along to the music, car horns being slammed relentlessly as people walked directly into the street without looking, and general pedestrians trying to shove their way through the crowd. He mentally took stock of everything on his person, for this was a pure pickpocket’s haven. 

As they started to cross over the river, Alec mentally made note of a plaque that indicated that this was the _Waterloo_ Bridge. 

The wind above the water tossed their hair about relentlessly. Ellie was starting to scuff her feet on the ground, affected by the cocktail she’d just chugged. In one hand she held the souvenir program she’d gotten, as it was too large to fit in her crossbody bag.

When they were halfway to the other side, she said, “That one actor really was awful.”

He looked around, taken aback. “You're the one who said to keep quiet on the negative opinions!”

“We were _in_ the theatre, for goodness sake! Now we’ve put some on some distance, and _I_ think that performer was atrocious. Oh, and god do I dislike audience members who seem to think they’ve booked a sing-along!” 

“That’s what you sign up for when you attend something like this.”

“Yeah, well, back in my day people just kept quiet and enjoyed the show when they went to the theatre.”

They entered an underground walkway and came across gaggle of German tourists holding an enormous map. The tourists asked them if they knew the way to “the black and the brown train lines.” Assessing that they were headed to the same place, Ellie told them to follow her and Alec.

As they emerged back onto the street, she said, “You know what the name of that bridge was, right?”

“Yes,” he said, trying to shut this thread of conversation.

She pointed to the large sign up ahead saying “Waterloo Station.” “And that’s—“

“A doing by the gods of suffering.”

“—same as the finale!” She broke out singing ABBA’s _Waterloo_. The tourists, who were trailing them closely, joined in with great enthusiasm. 

The pair maneuvered the swarm that was the main hall of the terminal. They grabbed sandwiches from one of the station shops, then scanned the large overhead dot matrix displays to obtain their platform number. After hopping on their train, the carriage steadily filled up until straphanging was the only option for those newly boarding.

“I really don’t envy this,” said Ellie as she unwrapped her sandwich. “Imagine having to return home from a long day’s work with the trains all packed like this? It's the weekend, this isn't even rush hour.”

He sighed and rested his chin in his palm. “I’ve done it in Glasgow. The bright side of Broadchurch is that the lack of mass transit means there’s no opportunity to be herded around like cattle.”

She ignored the backhanded insult at Broadchurch's lacking infrastructure. “I couldn’t live here.” She tilted her head and amended her words, saying, “Well, I could, but I wouldn’t want to. Not enough sea. They have got the river but it’s only so wide.”

Around departure time, the train guard made an announcement that sounded garbled over the speaker system. People started clamoring to their feet.

“What’s he said?” asked Ellie.

Alec motioned for her to get up. “They’ve altered the platform number for this service.”

“No idea how you could gather anything from the gobbledegook that sounded like,” she said as she grabbed her bag, program, and sandwich.

They moved with the hive over to the new track. This was problematic, as the people from the train they were going towards were switching to the train they'd just gotten off of. The clash was akin to two armies charging at each other in a big-budget film. 

The two of them scrambled onto the new train, miraculously not-scathed and not-robbed. Only three seats were left in the carriage; one next to and two opposite a man who was leaning his forehead against the window. As they were about to slide into the seats opposite him, a woman behind them exclaimed, “There you are!” and pointed to the man. 

The man moved his head but did not alter his forlorn expression as he said, “Changed your mind? You just said outside that you couldn't bear to be around me in public.”

Ellie turned sideways so that the woman could squeeze past her. 

“Don’t bother,” the woman said to Ellie. She gestured at the aisle seat diagonal from the man, saying, “I’ll take this one.” To comply peacefully, Alec and Ellie also had to sit diagonally from each other, with a table between them. They furiously texted one other in lieu of speaking out loud about the situation.

Thankfully, the couple got off after one stop. Ellie was not without a scowl when she got up to let the man out.

“Unbelievable,” she muttered as she sat in the seat next to Alec.

“It's like we were stuck on a trip with our divorced parents,” said Alec.

“Can't say this hasn't been an eventful day,” said Ellie “Admit it, you enjoyed it a little—the show, not the warring couple.”

“The leading lady was talented.”

She grinned. “See, not all that bad.”

“The most amusing part was that group in the seats down below—“

“God, they must’ve been drunk out of their minds…or just a really fun bunch. You know, I’ll have to come back to see it again at some point in the future, since Beth’s still not been. She’s going to be upset that when she hears about how you were so aggrieved. I assume—“ she couldn’t help but laugh “—that you won't be coming with, next time.”

“I think I’ll pass.”

At couple hours into their journey back, an elderly lady with silver hair and a large purple shawl got on and sat across from them. Ellie’s program was laying on the table and the lady glanced down at it, before looking up at them and asking, “Is that any good?”

They responded simultaneously.

“Yes,” said Ellie.

“No,” said Alec.

**Author's Note:**

> if you think this is a work of fiction, say that to earlier this year when i went to Southampton to see the mamma mia tour but bought a train ticket for the wrong day accidentally and only found out when a station worker told me why the barrier was rejecting my ticket and as i was buying a new one at the machine i missed my train which was hourly so took an against-the-rules route and when i got there i was drenched head to toe from the downpour of water that was hitting me with a weird hardness as i just wanted to get to the waterfront but was having trouble getting past the IKEA parking lot and was hobbling around the whole time because i’d just overexerted my achilles tendon by wearing the wrong shoes earlier that week (took 6 weeks to heal) and when i got to the theater my winter hat fell in the toilet and i had to throw it out and i took off my socks and shoes in the auditorium bc my feet were wet and freezing and i couldn’t leave town right away when it was over bc the new ticket i got was off-peak but also i didnt like the production, i had a bad time, so i legit tried buying booking mamma mia london for that night on my phone as a means of detoxing that production out of me (i was willing to get a new train ticket just to yeet outta there to make it on time) but the mastercard payment gateway wanted to text a different phone number that i didnt have access to as an identity check so i just walked to some sketchy riverfront underpass in the dark. no regrets tho, just me n my 10th Tanya


End file.
